From its humble origins as a few huts in a forbidding swamp, Brussels took more than a thousand years to become the capital of the Duchy of Brabant and then of Burgundy, and from 1830 the capital city of the new kingdom of Belgium. Today its name evokes European power politics and miniature cabbages, a world capital of beer, a paradise of chocolates and French fries. Yet Brussels is a city that has always been open to outsiders, to invaders and immigrants, always preserving its humanity. Architecturally rich and culturally diverse, Brussels defies its stereotypes. Andre de Vries explores a city and country in perpetual search of an identity, still showing the scars of the Counter-Reformation, peopled by the "Spaniards of the North." He discovers a capital on the fault-line between Latin and Germanic cultures, with improbable hybrid languages. A city so down-to-earth the Bruxellois had to invent surrealism.
Author(s): André de Vries
Publisher: Signal Books
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 264
City: Oxford
Tags: Brussels, Bruxelles
INTRODUCTION
Beyond Stereotypes (1); Brussels Identity (5); A History of Occupations (9); The Changing Shape of the City (13); Administrative Structure (15)
CHAPTER ONE. ILE ST. GERY: A SWAMP AND AN INVISIBLE RIVER
A House in a Marsh (20); Rue de Laeken and the Beguines (22); Chess and Haute Couture (23); The River Senne (24)
CHAPTER TWO. THE GRAND-PLACE: THE RISE OF BRUSSELS
The First Brussels Market (30); Hotel de Ville (32); Around the GrandPlace (34); Emblems and Statues (38); The Sacred Isle and Victor Hugo (40); Rue de la Tête d'Or et Rue Chair-et-Pain (42); Restaurant Culture (43); Rue des Bouchers (46); Theatre Toone: Wooden People with Souls (48)
CHAPTER THREE. THE MANNEKEN PIS: BRUSSELS' OLDEST CITIZEN
Medieval Class Struggle (50); The Palladium of Brussels (51); Verlaine and Mes Prisons (54); Karl Marx in Jail (55); Rue du Lombard (56); Rue de la Violette: Lace Making (57); Place Vieille Halle aux Bies and the Fondation Jacques Brei (58); Rue des Bogards (63); Rue des Pierres (63); Van Helmont: Philosophus per Ignem (64)
CHAPTER FOUR. 4. CATHEDRALE ST. GUDULE: SAINTS, SINNERS, AND CARTOON HEROES
The Miracle of the Rue des Sols: An Anti-Semitic Legend (69); Rue St. Laurent: Red Light Zone (70); Rue des Sables: The Comic Strip Museum (74); Herge and Tintin (76)
CHAPTER FIVE. CITY OF PALACES: ROYAL BRUSSELS
Life at the Palace (So); The Burgundians (82); The Habsburgs (84); The Coudenberg (85); The End of the Couden berg (88); Palais Royal (89); Parc de Bruxelles (90); Rue Royale (90); Rue Isabelle: Charlotte Bronte and the Professor (91); Notre-Dame-aux-Neiges and Victor Hugo (94); Mont des Arts and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (97)
CHAPTER SIX. THE SOUTH: MYSTICS AND HERETICS
John of Ruysbroeck and Groenendael (100); Erasmus and the Reformation (102); The Inquisition (107); Anderlecht: Martyrdom of a Supporter (108); The Southern Communes: Uccle (110); Forêt de Soignes (112); Watermael-Boitsfort (114); La Hulpe (114); Auderghem and Hugo van der Goes (115); Woluwe (116); Woluwe St. Pierre and Eddy Merckx (117); The Chocolate Tram and the Vicinal (118)
CHAPTER SEVEN. ART FOR SALE: BRUEGHEL, SURREALISM, AND HIGH CULTURE
Louis XIV: Brussels Bombarded (121); The Brueghel Factory (122); Musée des Beaux Arts (123); Dada and Surrealism (124); Marcel Broodthaers (127); COBRA and the Rue de la Paille (128); Sablan (130); Notre Dame des Victoires (130); Palais des Beaux Arts (133); Musee du Cinema de Bruxelles (136)
CHAPTER EIGHT. THE ROAD TO WATERLOO
French Occupation (139); Napoleon and the Palais de Laeken (140); Waterloo: A Near Thing (142); A Last Dance (144); Battlefield Tourists (146); Byron in Brussels (150); James Joyce (151)
CHAPTER NINE. THEATRE DE LA MONNAIE: BIRTHPLACE OF THE NATION
The 1830 Revolution (154); La Malibran (156); The Monnaie in Modern Times (157); Cafe Culture (158); Literary Cafés (160); Galeries St-Hubert: Shopping Innovation (162); La Mort Subite: Brussels and Beer (164); Baudelaire and the Rue de la Montagne (168)
CHAPTER TEN. VILVOORDE AND MOLENBEEK: THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
The Canal de Willebroeck and the Port of Brussels (172); Brussels Changes Languages (175); The Canals and L’Allée Verte (180); Vilvoorde and William Tyndale (182); Molenbeek and Industrial Archaeology (183); The Bassins and Place St. Catherine (184); Industrialization in Art and Literature (187)
CHAPTER ELEVEN. THE MAROLLES: WORKING-CLASS BRUSSELS
Rue Haute: High and Low Life (192); Vesalius and the Rue des Minimes (194); Rue des Brigittines and Georges Eekhoud (196); Place du Jeu de Balle and the Old Market (198); The Palais de Justice (200); Brussels Dialects (202); Rue Blaes and Rue des Tanneurs (206); Plague and Medicine (208)
CHAPTER TWELVE. AN EMPIRE OF ONE'S OWN: VICTOR HORTA AND ART NOUVEAU
Art Nouveau in the City (212); Architectural Conservation (214); Leopold II: Lust for Empire (215); The Curse of the Rubber King (218); Avenue Louise and the Bois de la Cambre (221); Three Brussels Poets (222)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. CAPITAL OF EUROPE
Two German Occupations (226); The Atomium and the Heysel (229); The European Community (230); VDB and CDP: the "Crocodile" (234); Antoine Wiertz: Euromegalomaniac (236)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. A NEW KIND OF VISITOR: IMMIGRANT BRUSSELS
Alexandra David-Neel (242); Migrants and Literature (242); Jewish Life in Brussels (244); Gare du Midi (245); Gare du Nord (246); The Monarch in Question (248); The Future of Brussels (248)
